India: Beyond Low Cost Development in Spend Management

At Ketera Connect, I had the chance to talk to a number of the vendor's product managers and lead technologists, all of whom were headquartered in Bangalore. Like Zycus, Ketera has made a strategic decision to locate nearly all of product development, management and marketing in India. What struck me most about the conversations at the event -- along with those I've had with Zycus' Indian-based team -- is the level of market-driven innovation and sophistication among Indian-based technologists in this sector. Clearly, in the Spend Management world, India is longer just associated with low-cost development. Rather, it's increasingly viewed as a talent hub from a software development perspective.

In the procurement and operations world, India is also a seat of innovation as well, coming up with ideas ranging from advanced visualization and analytics to enhanced supplier content and relationship management. And while India still might be cheaper from a wage standpoint than the Bay Area, it is at parity -- or even more expensive -- than places like Indianapolis and St. Louis. Clearly, this is a country which we can no longer describe as low-cost from a software development and product management perspective.